Yup, it's back I have some uninterrupted free time today while DD is at the cinema with her friends, so I'm planning on a Deryni fest. Loving what I've read so far, and like I said to you, that shower cubicle spell is class!

Not sure, since I'm not quite sure of the definition of the term. (Aside from the fanfic here, about the only fanfic I've read is some on a Star Wars list I was on a decade ago, and some I used to read and write in Pern fandom about 20 years ago.) On the SW list, I always heard a "Mary Sue" defined as a story in which the heroine is a thinly disguised, or maybe idealized, stand-in for the author herself starring in her own story. If that's the definition, then Cat is really nothing like me aside from sharing a love for Duncan McLain and being called to a vocation. And even in that, we're different in that Cat's calling is to minister to the persecuted Deryni of Gwynedd. Mine is to minister to the persecuted Deryni in Alabama. (OK, just kidding! But seriously, I minister to abuse survivors, which is as much a spiritual calling for me as Duncan's vocation is for him, so I think that's why I'm so drawn to his character.)

Here's what I was going for in creating Catriona. When I started out, I knew (based on the type of story I was discussing with my friend who inspired ANAMCHARA) that I wanted to write essentially a "what if?" story based on the premise of what would happen if Duncan fell in love after taking final vows. Duncan is a man of great honor and integrity who is completely devoted to his faith and faithful to his vows, but he also is fully human and therefore just as capable of flawed judgment and falling into error despite his best intentions as anyone else on the planet. So how would he react if he were blindsided by love the way Alaric had been with Richenda? How would he respond to that? How would he attempt to balance his devotion to God and his priestly vocation with his personal feelings? But for that to even become an issue, I had to figure out how a woman would even enter his life in a way that would allow them to grow close enough for him to even fall in love. Let's face it, it's not like priests or bishops go to Court dances to meet women! Where would he get to know one well enough to fall in love, in the confessional booth? I couldn't make her a lady-in-waiting either; I don't think Duncan spends a lot of time hanging around Meraude's solar, or even Richenda's. So I had to come up with a creative solution that would bring them together in the first place, so they could even form the level of friendship that could lead to an attraction growing. And proximity wouldn't be enough; there had to be something they'd have in common to bring them together emotionally. I can't quite see Duncan falling for a woman just because she's got a pretty face.

But of course, one problem with creating a woman with a religious vocation is that, aside from the convent life, that's not really an option for women of Gwynedd. But Torenth already has a form of Christian worship that is similar in many ways to the Church of Gwynedd, but also different in many ways. So I postulated the existence of another Kingdom (if you read the Introduction to the story, you'll remember I mentioned it's a bit "alternate universe" in that respect) which is based more on an ancient Celtic mythos. I also drew from that mythos (specifically from Scatha of, I think, the Cu Chullain myth...not sure of the spelling on that, though I'll admit my Scatha owes more to Stephen Lawhead's version than the original) for the idea of a land where a lady might be the direct descendent of warrior queens, the Island of Llyr. And I gave that land its own similar-but-different Church, figuring it would probably have developed more along the lines of a Celtic Christianity than the Orthodox Church of Torenth or the RC/High Anglican-like Church of Gwynedd.

I really can't see the Church of Gwynnedd, from what we know of them from canon, so blythely accepting a neighboring kingdom's church that not only allowed priests to marry but ordained women. I'm a cradle Episcopalian, and am old enough (barely!) to remember the brou-ha-ha over ordaining women. They might be able to accept married priests; or even priests marrying (the Eastern Orthodox Churches and Greek Rite Catholics allow a married man to be ordained, but not a priest to marry). But women priests? Think how shocking it was in "Harrowing" when they found indications that the Airsids may have ordained women to the diaconate. The willing suspension of disbelief is one thing. In this case, disbelief doesn't just have to be 'suspended.' It has to be drawn and quartered. (Note, I personally have nothing against woman priests; both the priests at my parish are women!)

Also, although Catriona and Duncan never were physically involved, they were emotionally evolved, and for a young man to marry a woman who was *that* close to becoming his stepmother. . . I'm sorry, it just squicks me.

All that being said, YOU DO WRITE WELL. I love your other stories. This one just didn't work with me.

I really need to find and re-read the Camber era books. My memories of them are so foggy now, about all I can recall of them is that I really liked Joram, Evaine, and Rhys; I learned to dread regencies; and there are certain historical periods in which it really sucks to be Deryni.

I really don't know how accepting or not the Church of Gwynedd would be concerning the doctrinal differences in the Church of Llyr, but it could well be just as controversial and as much a subject for concern (probably is, in fact) as the Church of Llyr's (and Llyrian society's) ready acceptance of Deryni. Duncan knows The Kyle as a priest for something like three years before discovering who "Kyle" really is, so he'd have had ample time to realize that Cat/Kyle has a true spiritual vocation. Whether or not he thought she should've been ordained to the priesthood, once he discovers she's a woman, might have been one of those differences they ended up debating about, but I tried to skirt away from him actually advocating women in the priesthood (he, after all, isn't in the Church of Llyr) or, on the other hand, arguing about it either. In fact, the first time he meets Catriona in her true form and the subject comes up, he diplomatically sidesteps it. On the other hand, even if he'd been opposed, I just don't see him being confrontational about it any more than I can imagine him getting argumentative with a priest from Torenth re: doctrinal differences. Arilan, maybe--he's definitely blunt enough--though Arilan is probably too concerned with trying to give his brother priest a wake-up call that he's drifted into the perilous territory of an emotional affair to sweat the whole "oh, and by the way, our church doesn't consider her a valid priest" question.

Yeah, I knew this was a story that, no matter how carefully I tried to handle it, wouldn't end up working for everyone, especially with Dhugal involved in the mix. I considered at one point trying to just tell the Duncan and Catriona dilemma/evolving relationship story from either Morgan's or Kelson's point of view, but I couldn't figure out any way to have either one of them invested enough to ferret out the full story, nor could I figure out the best way to get it across from Duncan's and/or Catriona's point of view. And if the relationship had simply jumped from the phileo (friendship) stage of love to the agape (unconditional love) stage without the struggle with the eros (erotic attraction) stage in between, that eliminates the whole conflict that inspired the story in the first place, which was "What happens if an honorable, celibate priest gets gobsmacked by love and has to figure out how to deal with that?" That wouldn't have been an issue at all if the only attraction between the characters was purely platonic. But yeah, trying to write it from Dhugal's point of view, and have Dhugal be the catalyst for moving the Duncan/Cat relationship past the dangerous stage to something more balanced, was what I was most concerned that I might not be able to pull off for everyone, and I'm sorry that it didn't work for you. I'm glad you're enjoying the other stories, though, and I'm having a lot of fun writing them.

Hi, Marko! Yes, I still keep up with replies to this thread. For some reason that Webs.com website that the story is hosted on is a bit temperamental and it goes down from time to time. Usually it's back up and running again in just a few hours, or if not by then, then try it the next day. That was my first attempt at Deryni fanfic (yes, my very first Deryni fanfic was a novella length mule-choker...go figure! ), and when I posted it, I had no idea yet what size chapters this forum board would allow, or if a story that long would even be welcome here. As it was, I ended up having to divide some of the original sections into half or even thirds to upload them to the Webs.com blog site.

If you continue to have trouble accessing it via the link, and you'd rather try reading it some other way, I could email you the manuscript directly. Unfortunately I don't have the story uploaded elsewhere, but if you are able to read a .doc (Microsoft Word) attachment, I'd be glad to email one to you. Just contact me via the Forum's private message system (see the "My Messages" tab at the top of the page, or else click on my name to get to my profile and then find the link to send me a private message) and let me know where to send the file. unfortunately there's not a way to send an attachment by means of the PM system, so I would need a regular email address. (By the way, that offer to send files by email stands if anyone else wants to read any of my other stories as a single document, with their original formatting. I usually save files either in .doc or, more recently, OpenOffice's .odt format, either of which is readable via MS Word and probably most other word processing software as well.)

ANAMCHARA. Thank you for writing it, I am not a writer by any means, but to me you put Dhugel on a par with Morgan and Kelson as far as a personality, makeing him feel like a whole person. One thing that I question and maybe it's just me but on page 60 it's Duncan's (sorry bad spelling) story to Dhugel, so should it not be " She reached up to stroke a stray lock of hair away from (my) /his face" ? As I said I am not a writer but it just seems more to the issue of it being Duncan.

Hi, HealingWaters! I'm glad you enjoyed the story. I went back and looked at the scene you are referencing, and in that particular scene "his" would be correct, since this scene (and all of the others in italics) are meant to be flashbacks, showing in words what Dhugal is seeing through his rapport with his father (and with others in the story), and therefore I use the third person for pronouns in those scenes in order to show that Duncan is not narrating his own story in actual words, but Dhugal is seeing what Duncan actually experienced, said at the time, felt, thought, etc. from the viewpoint of someone else entrusted with the privilege of witnessing those private memories, if that makes sense. But yes, if Duncan had been sharing this story verbally, literally saying "She reached up to stroke a stray lock of hair away from my face," then the first person "my" would make sense in that sort of context. Since in real life we don't have the ability to communicate via telepathic rapport (well, some may, but I sure don't!), I tried to communicate the difference between the verbalized parts of the story and the Mind-Shared parts by use of both italics and pronoun usage to show that the shared memories are not narrations. Otherwise, since this sharing is taking place in private, Duncan could have simply told him the story of his evolving relationship with Catriona rather than shared the full experience of it with him via rapport.

Nice to know people are still reading this story several years after it was first posted. This was my first venture into the scary (to me at the time, especially since I didn't know if anyone else would be interested!) world of Deryni fanfic writing. I hope you continue with the rest of my story arc. I have a pinned post at the top of the Deryni fanfic section that gives a suggested reading order. We have some very talented storytellers on this forum (at least one of whom has gone on to publish original fiction of her own), so be sure to check out the rest of the fanfic as well. The new fanfic database makes it easier to return directly to the last chapter you left off in if you are reading one of the novella or novel-length stories.